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GALACTIC NEWS FROM THREE ANGELS #20

TWENTY-TWO BIRTHDAY CARDS

Today as we finish up with this marvelous four-week Bible study adventure we’ve enjoyed together here in the book of Revelation, I’d like to share a kind of bootleg story with you. My associate Kurt Johnson has been preparing a Bible study correspondence course entitled Focus on Prophecy; in fact, this brand new series has as its focus the book of Revelation. No surprise for those of you who have been with us these last few weeks here in chapter 14. But even before the presses began to roll with these great new lessons, we kind of lifted out an anecdote from one of them. Here it is:

“Laura lost her father to cancer at an early age,” he writes, “and missed him keenly in the months after the funeral. He’d been such a loving man. At her next birthday, however, she was astounded to find a letter from Dad addressed to her and bearing the current date. It offered her encouragement and counsel about the challenges she’d face at this stage in her life. On her next birthday, there was another letter from Dad, talking to her about this particular time in her life. And so it went, through every birthday as Laura grew into a mature young woman. Her father, knowing he was dying, had composed a series of letters to her, addressing each special year in her life. It was his way of saying how much he cared about her and her future.” And then this summary statement: “That’s why God has given us these wonderful prophecies in the Bible. How does it make you feel to know that God loves you so much that He has revealed details about the future?”

That’s a great thought question, isn’t it? Because, friend, this is personal! The 22 chapters in Revelation are like 22 sealed envelopes with my name written on them. Or yours. Considering how vital, and how complex, these mysterious writings by John are, maybe we should space them out, and just read one a year over 22 successive birthdays. But here in these 22 brief chapters, these 404 verses, God is writing us a letter. “Hang in there!” He says. “Dark forces are coming down the highway; they’ll try to pull you away from Me. They’re going to persecute. They’re going to pervert truth. But if you stay in My care, if you keep focusing on the fact that I’m your Creator and your Protector — if you keep your eyes and your worship focused right here — you’re going to be all right.”

We’ve used quite a bit of the great book, God Cares, written by the late Bible scholar, C. Mervyn Maxwell. He and his family grew up in the throes of World War II England; the Blitzkrieg was going on, the blackout nights down in the Tube, the subway, while the bombs were going off overhead. Adolf Hitler was acting like his Panzer divisions and his Luftwaffe were going to sweep across Europe and take it all.

But you know something? Mervyn and his brothers and his mom and dad, all faithful Christians, all prophecy students, sat in their darkened living room and listened to the BBC just like all the others. They heard Winston Churchill’s speeches about blood, sweat, and tears. “We will never, never, NEVER give up,” and all the rest. And I’m sure they took hope from those words.

But they took even more hope from the words found in their old King James Bibles, the prophetic words from Daniel and Revelation which clearly tell this planet that after four world empires, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, there simply would not EVER be another world tyrant who could dominate all of Europe. Not Charlemagne. Not Napoleon. Not Stalin. And not this latest Gestapo madman. The promises of Daniel and Revelation made it clear that there would NOT be a “Thousand-Year Reich.”

Now friend, that’s not to say that the Maxwell family climbed into hammocks and sipped champagne during the war. We can’t point to Bible verses and say, “Not to worry. Jesus is coming; this planet can just go to hell.” God expects us to resist evil and stand up against tyranny; that’s one of the ways heaven fulfills its promises and prophecies. But when all of human works are said and done, what a comfort it is to know that the Bible puts the power of heaven behind these guarantees.

Maybe if you’ve tuned in there on your car radio for all 20 of these “Three Angels” programs, it’s kind of raised the temperature in your own spiritual zone. “Judgment is coming!” “Babylon is fallen!” “The wrath of God poured out.” Etc. Etc. There are a lot of dragons and doom and destruction in these 404 verses, and we only read about ten of them, total. But please notice with me here in the chapter of our focus, Revelation 14, that yes, we do have this fallen beast. And the smoke of her torment going up forever. That’s verse 11. But what’s in verse 14?

“Then the scene changed and I saw a white cloud, and someone sitting on it who looked like Jesus, who was called ‘The Son of Man,’ with a crown of solid gold upon His head and a sharp sickle in His hand.”

Isn’t that tremendous? Wouldn’t you like to have that in a birthday card for you — Jesus on a throne, coming to rescue you? Coming with a crown for you? What wonderful news that all the doom and the demons is followed by a Deliverer.

Revelation chapter 16 has as a subtitle: “The Vials of Wrath.” It’s fearsome stuff: the seven last plagues. Which, for those who rebel against God, are going to be a nightmare beyond comprehension. Notice: for those who rebel against God. But God lovingly calls us to not rebel, to instead worship Him as Creator. Do we have to experience the seven last plagues of chapter 16? No!

And what comes later? In Revelation chapter 20, Satan is bound and rendered helpless. That’s good news, isn’t it? I don’t want to skip that. Just a few verses later, after one last gasp from our ancient enemy, Lucifer and his minions are finally destroyed forever in the lake of fire. Tragically, those who tenaciously cling to his falsehoods, who reject God as Creator and Jesus Christ as Redeemer, share their fate. Is that bad news for us? It doesn’t have to be . . . because all through Revelation we’re invited, in those 22 birthday cards, to embrace God as Creator. To accept Jesus as Savior. That’s pure protection from the horrors of Revelation chapter 20 . . . which is followed by the incredible good news of chapter 21: “The New Heaven and the New Earth.”

“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. . . . And God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Listen to me, friend. There are things in Revelation I don’t understand. But these verses right here — I DO understand. No more death. I understand that. No more pain; I don’t find much mystery or apocalyptic confusion in those three words. No sorrow. No crying. Are you in any doubt about what those verses promise for you and me? God living with us, dwelling with us? WITH US?! I’m not baffled a whole lot by that. And I’ve got to tell you: I want it. I want it bad.

As we close, I think the best thing might be to quietly return to the very end of the message of this third Angel. The warnings have been given. The safeguards have been detailed. And then John the Revelator, who himself had endured a personal microcosm of some of these persecutions — false worship, dangerous doctrines, plagues and apostasies all around — gives us these sure words:

“These things that I saw,” he writes, “will call for special endurance on the part of God’s people who keep the commandments of God . . . AND . . . are faithful to Jesus.”

And I’d like to end with those three words right there: “Faithful to Jesus.” Here on October 11, in the year of our Lord, 2002, I want to be “faithful to Jesus.” My safeguard today isn’t in figuring out these prophecies. My salvation doesn’t come from deciphering what “666" represents. My heavenly home isn’t going to be given to me because I drew a timeline and guessed right about what the Mark of the Beast is. No friend, I’m looking forward to living in the City of God because I’ve been blessed to have a relationship of being faithful to Jesus.

There might be many differences today between “me and thee” as we visit on the radio. I’m Protestant; maybe you’re Catholic. I’m a preacher; maybe you’re a lay person. Maybe you’re in jail listening today. But listen. If in these end times, you are faithful to Jesus, and I am faithful to Jesus, then we’re going to be together in that great multitude described in Revelation 19.

“Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”